Marlo: She fought for her rights. When we were putting that album together, I said, "If we could re-write our childhoods, what would we like to know? What would we have like to heard?" And my friend Herb Gardner said, "I would have liked to have known that it’s OK for a boy to cry." And Carol Hall wrote that wonderful song, "It’s All Right to Cry." I said, "I would have liked to have one fairytale to end where the princess does not marry the prince. And she’s not a blonde!" So we got Betty Miles to re-write Atalanta so Atalanta ran in the race and made the decision herself. And, as you know, Atalanta was a brunette. So many women wrote me to say thank you for not copping out at the end of Atalanta. By the way, not copping out at the end of Atalanta is very much like not copping out at the end of That Girl. My character on That Girl didn’t get married, and Atalanta didn’t get married because that’s not the only happy ending. It was important for me to say that. I mean, I’m married now for 38 years, and I’m crazy about my husband. It is my happy ending, but it isn’t what I needed for a happy ending. It became a happy event that I found a man that I loved and wanted to live with forever. But I don’t think that should be the goal of every girl.
Gillian: I agree.
Marlo: And every story doesn’t have to end that way, because that’s a terrible pressure to put on every girl...that the only way to be happy is to be married. That’s crazy.
Gillian: My mom really wanted me to hear that it was important for me to have something that I’m passionate about and have my own career. She didn't want me to have the message that she grew up with, which was not only do you get married, but you find a man who is going to take care of you. Because if it doesn’t work out, you have to start over, and a lot of times you were dependent on your husband. So that was a message that I heard strongly in my childhood.
Gillian Jacobs at a young age.
Gillian JacobsMarlo: Exactly. I’m glad it meant so much to you. That makes me feel great.
Gillian: That's why in the last few years, if I have an impulse to do something or a curiosity about something, I’m trying to pursue it rather than dismiss it. So I’m interviewing people, I’m writing essays, I’m starting to direct. I am learning to push past my own feelings of inadequacy. Did you have that same feeling that if you have an interest in something, you're just going to make it happen?
Marlo: I don’t know the answer to that question. Probably for me, I never really had a career plan, which I probably should have. I’m kind of like a kid where if you wave something shiny in front of them that’s what attracts them. I did an interview show on AOL for five years called Mondays with Marlo, and I interviewed over 200 people from Jennifer Aniston to Suze Orman. I wanted to do something where I could help women figure out their own lives. It was really interesting to learn things I never would have known, whether it was about 401Ks from Suze Orman or something else. It was providing a service, and it really turned me on.
